An Ealing Resident with his camera ... here's what I'm doing - if you want to commission, buy or use any pictures let me know..

Monday, February 08, 2016

The other big political story and Red 267

Yesterday I went on about the UK politics around the upcoming EU referendum - today I'm thinking (and welcoming other thoughts) on the upcoming US 'Presidential's' and the stuff that comes before them.

I'm pretty ignorant (and admitting it for once!) about the US parties and the mechanics that lead to the selection of the Presidential hopefuls of the two big parties.

That's going to be quite a wall Donald

Here's what I reckon (and do let me know where I'm going wrong), The Democrats are the more progressive of the two big US parties and are broadly speaking pro organised labour and improving the lot of the working men and women.
The Republicans are more tied to what in Europe we would consider the politically conservative (with a small c) classes, they are more likely to favour Anti- Abortion legislation and a more free economic market with less intervention (but of course the Right of the Democrat party is clse to the Left-er most figures of the Republican side).

We can currently see figures competing for as chance to become the US Presidential candidates within the two major parities who get a lot of coverage in the press and support from the Political classes whose views are far removed from the mainstream.

Donald Trump is a colourful figure who (presumably) is driven both by his beliefs and his ego it seems there are few bandwagons he will not jump on to get publicity and he hopes votes, his agenda is generally about saying what he hopes the voters want to hear.

On the left in the Democrat camp we have a popular Socialist in the shape of Bernie Sanders he is propelled by a desire to improve the working person's situation (and ego of course) - the danger is that one of these two extreme (in my mind) candidates will secure their respective nominations at best unbalancing the democratic (with a small d) process and at worst getting elected.

My judgement would be that elections in the USA as in the UK are won in the centre ground and that reality should be a politician's guiding light - undoubtedly we'll have some interesting weeks ahead but I trust for a sensible outcome where neither the Jeremy Corbyn or the equally misinformed Ian Duncan Smith figures get chosen